Eighty years ago today, the first of two atomic bombs was used in anger. Hiroshima and then Nagasaki were vaporised. The Japanese could understand how a thousand-plane B-29 raids could kill one hundred thousand Japanese living in Tokyo or Nagoya in a single night. But it took a second B-29 and a second bomb to shock and awe Japan into abandoning its insistence on suicidal resistance and surrender unconditionally to the Allies.

Then came the H-bomb and thermonuclear weapons. The explosive power of nuclear weapons is measured in thousands of tons of TNT equivalents or kilotons (KT). Thermonuclear weapons are measured in million ton equivalents of TNT (MT). While at one time it was feasible to consider the tactical use of nuclear weapons, thermonuclear weapons present an existential threat not to a city but to society in general. The reason for restraint is evident: for the first time in history, no winners and only losers would emerge from a thermonuclear war. Thus, since 1945, no nuclear weapon has been used in combat, war or as a “demonstration” shot in a crisis. And those possessing these weapons have not spread to many dozens as was once feared. Today, there are ten........

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